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If you’re anything like me, you’re either anticipating a bald spot, or already covering one up with a sweet New Era cap featuring your favorite team. Since 2011, MLB has been coming out with special Stars and Stripes editions of hats for all teams to wear on the 4th of July. Here are my personal rankings of the hats. Shout me out on twitter with your favorite one: @NatiBoyDB.

First to worst:

2011: pictured above is the best hat that they’ve come out with so far. It incorporates the flag, and has a great mix of all of the colors into the “C” logo. It helps that the Reds main color is featured prominently on the hats, because I always think the Stars and Stripes hats for teams with no red or blue in their team colors looks weird (the Orioles, for example). I really think they peaked early with this one; it was the first edition of the Stars and Stripes hats, and they knocked it out of the park, only to go downhill from there.

It’s been a season of ups and downs for the last place Cincinnati Reds so far this year. The downs include a piss poor start that ended up costing the manager his job. The ups were the best June in all of baseball, and 3 All-Star appearances by our beloved team. With that said, it’s the halfway point, and it’s time to hand out some awards.

There are Cincinnati Bearcats all over the NBA Summer League this year in Vegas. With some of the talent that has made its way through the program the past few years, with 8 straight NCAA tournament appearances, it’s awesome that we’re finally starting to see some of Mick Cronin’s recruits have success after college. Jacob Evans III was the first round pick for the Golden State Warriors this past year, and has been playing a bunch of minutes for them in their first few games out west. As a Lakers fan, I was super jealous that he went to the GSW, instead of being nabbed by LA a few picks earlier.

Joining Evans this summer is Gary Clark with the Houston Rockets. I’m not sure if Gary is playing in the Summer League because I’ve seen him in street clothes on the bench. He signed a two-way deal with the Houston Rockets after going undrafted, but I think he can be good fit for them under the right circumstances. Clark’s frontcourt buddy Kyle Washington is also on a team this summer, playing for the Detroit Pistons. I’m not sure that Washington has the chops to make it in the NBA, but I think he definitely could make a nice living if he goes to Europe and plays professionally.

Yep, you heard that right. Your 2018 last place Cincinnati Redlegs are sending 3 guys to the All-Star game in DC next week.

Okay, fine. The Reds have been playing a lot better than their record shows, as of late. If it wasn’t for their historically bad start to the 2018 season, we may even be in some sort of race (Wild Card or Divisional). For the last month of the season, Scooter has been leading the league in hitting, and Eugenio Suarez has been tops in the NL in RBI for most of the season. And Joey is just Joey, as always.